6 ISTR XII Key Trends Staged attacks use a small and quiet initial compromise to establish a beachhead from which subsequent attacks are launched Later stages of an attack can be changed to suit the attacker s needs Top downloaded components in multi-staged malicious code 6

7 Internet Security Threat Report Volume XII Key Facts and Figures

8 Attack Trends Bot Networks During the current reporting period Symantec observed an average of 52,771 active bot network computers per day, a 17% decrease from the last half of The worldwide total of distinct bot-infected computers that Symantec identified dropped to 5,029,309 - a 17% decrease. Command and control servers decreased during this period to 4,622 - a 3% decrease. The United States continues to have the highest number of command and control servers worldwide with 43% - a 3% increase from its previous total. China has increased its global proportion of bot-infected computers to 29% while the United States continues to decline somewhat. China s bot growth has slowed since last year when it increased by 15%. 8

9 Attack Trends Lifespan of bot-infected computers Average lifespan of a bot-infected computer in the first six months of 2007 was 4 days. This is one day longer than the average in the last half of Indicates that most bots participate in attacking behavior for a short period. 9

10 Attack Trends Underground Economy Servers Trading in credit cards, identities, online payment services, bank accounts, bots, fraud tools, etc. are ranked according to goods most frequently offered for sale on underground economy servers. Credit cards were the most frequently advertised item (22%) followed by bank accounts (21%). passwords sell for almost as much as a bank account. 10

11 Attack Trends Data Breaches Information on data breaches that could lead to identity theft. Data collected is not Symantec data. The Education sector accounted for the majority of data breaches with 30%, followed by Government (26%) and Healthcare (15%) - almost half of breaches (46%) were due to theft or loss with hacking only accounting for 16%. Hacking resulted in 73% of identities being exposed 11

12 Attack Trends Malicious Activity Between January 1st and June 30th the United States was the top country for malicious activity (raw numbers) with 30% of the overall proportion. China was ranked second with 10%. When accounting for Internet populations, Israel was the top country with 11% followed by Canada with 6%. Seven of the top ten countries in this metric were located in EMEA. 12

13 Vulnerability Trends Un-patched vulnerabilities by vendor 90 of the documented vulnerabilities in the period were un-patched compared to 94 in the previous period. Microsoft had the most un-patched vulnerabilities at 64. This is lower than the 75 un-patched vulnerabilities in the second half of Oracle had 13 un-patched vulnerabilities in the first half of 2007, an increase over the 7 documented in the previous period. 13

14 Vulnerability Trends Browser plug-in vulnerabilities Vulnerabilities in Web browser plug-ins are frequently exploited to install malicious software. In the first half of 2007, 237 vulnerabilities affecting browser plug-ins were documented compared to 108 in all of % of browser plug-in vulnerabilities affected ActiveX components for Internet Explorer, an increase over the 58% in the previous period. 14

15 Vulnerability Trends Browser Vulnerabilities and W.O.E. Microsoft had the highest number of documented vulnerabilities with 39 followed by Mozilla with 34. Both these vendors also had the highest window of exposure at 5 days each. Safari and Opera were the only browsers to experience an increase in documented vulnerabilities this period. There were 25 vulnerabilities documented in Safari this period, a significant increase from the 4 documented in the last half of However, Safari had the shortest window of exposure at only 3 days. 15

16 Vulnerability Trends Patch Development Time All vendors reported shorter average patch development times except HP. Sun and HP had the longest patch development times with 110 and 112 days respectively. Microsoft had the shortest patch development time with 18 days. Sample set size is a key component - the majority of vulnerabilities affect 3rd party components. Microsoft had the highest number of severe vulnerabilities with 12. As with previous periods, Microsoft Windows was the operating system that had the most vulnerabilities with associated exploit code and exploit activity in the wild. 16

17 Vulnerability Trends Additional Metrics Symantec documented 2,461 vulnerabilities in the current reporting period, 3% fewer than the previous reporting period. Severity classification: High severity 9%, Medium severity 51% and Low severity 40%. Web applications constituted 61% of all documented vulnerabilities. 72% of vulnerabilities documented this period were easily exploitable compared to 79% in the previous period. The W.O.E. for enterprise vendors was 55 days, an increase over the 47 day average in the second half of vulnerabilities were documented in Oracle, more than any other database this period. This is lower than the 168 Oracle database vulnerabilities documented in the previous period. From January 1st - June 30th 2007, Symantec documented 6 zero-day vulnerabilities, a decrease from the previous reporting period. 17

18 Malicious Code Trends New malicious code threats In the first half of 2007, 212,101 new malicious code threats were reported to Symantec. This is a 185% increase over the second half of This increase can mainly be attributed to new Trojans such as staged downloaders. The first stage of a staged downloader is usually written for a specific target or purpose, resulting in the creation of a very large number of them. 18

19 Malicious Code Trends Geo-location by type More Trojans caused potential/attempted infections in North America region than anywhere else in the world at 44%. EMEA was the top region for all other malicious code types including worms, viruses, and back doors. 19

20 Malicious Code Trends Multiple infections 35% of computers reporting potential malicious code infections reported more than once. Many of these may be the result of staged downloaders. 20

21 Malicious Code Trends Malicious code targeting online gaming Total annual wealth created within virtual worlds has been placed at approximately 10 billion USD. 5% of the top 50 malicious code this period targeted online gaming account information. The two most commonly targeted games were Lineage and World of Warcraft. 21

22 Malicious Code Trends Types Trojans continue to rise and may constitute a greater threat because they tend to exploit web browser and zero-day vulnerabilities. Trojans causing potential/attempted infections increased from 60% to 73% this period. Worms continue to drop this period, only accounting for 22% of potential infections. This is a decrease from the 37% in the last half of The percentage of viruses increased from 5% to 10% this period. 22

23 Malicious Code Trends Threats to Confidential Information During the current reporting period, threats to confidential information made up 65% of the volume of top 50 malicious code causing potential infections, up from 53% in the previous reporting period. While the volume of threats that allow remote access remained stable from the same reporting period last year, the volume of threats that log keystrokes and export user and system data have all increased - Keystroke loggers represent 88% of the report threats to confidential information. 23

24 Malicious Code Trend Propagation Vectors attachment propagation is the number one propagation mechanism at 46%. High percentages of various file-sharing mechanisms like CIFS and P2P show diversification to counter increasing attachment blocking. 24

25 Malicious Code Trends Additional Metrics 4 of the top ten new malicious code families were trojans - the Peacomm Trojan was the number one new malicious code family reported to Symantec. 18% of the 1,509 documented malicious code instances exploited vulnerabilities, down from 23% of the 1,318 instances in the last half of of the top ten staged downloaders were Trojans and 2 were worms while 7 of the top ten downloaded components were Trojans and 3 were back doors. 25

26 Phishing Automated phishing toolkits Three phishing toolkits were responsible for 42 percent of all phishing Web sites observed by Symantec in the first half of % of all phishing Web sites were hosted on only 30% of IP addresses known to be phishing Web servers. Phishing toolkits are often indicated by the ability to host a large number of phishing sites on the same compromised computer. 26

27 Phishing Top Countries Hosting Phishing Sites 59% of known phishing sites were located in the United States followed by Germany with 6% and the United Kingdom with 3% The U.S. is number one because a large number of Web-hosting providers particularly free Web hosts are located in the United States. The increase in phishing sites there this period may be in part due to the high number of Trojans in North America. 27

28 Phishing Additional Metrics The Symantec Probe network detected a total of 196,860 unique phishing messages, an 18 percent increase from the previous period. This translates into an average of 1,088 unique phishing messages per day. Symantec blocked over 2.3 billion phishing messages - an increase of 53% over the last half of An average of 12.5 million phishing messages per day. Financial services accounted for 79% of the unique brands that were phished while making up 72% of the total phishing websites. The ISP sector accounted for 11% of unique brands phished and 3% of the total number of phishing websites. During the first six months of 2007, Symantec classified 78 of the 359 brands being phished as core brands. Core brands are those that are spoofed at least once each month by a phishing attack. 28

29 Spam Image spam Image spam made up 27% of all spam blocked by Symantec in the first half of Started the year at approximately 50% of all spam and was likely related to Peacomm which was spammed to users as image spam messages. Declined starting in April, shortly after Operation Spamalot began. A large proportion of image spam to this point consisted of pump and dump scams. 29

30 Spam Country of Origin 47% of all spam originated in the United States, an increase from 44% in the previous reporting period. Undetermined EU countries rank second with 7% followed by China with 4% Country of origin includes spam originating from spam zombies and legitimate servers. Spam zombies are the result of an infection by a bot, worm or Trojan and show a wider distribution of spam origins. Distribution of Spam Zombies - U.S. 10%, China 9%, Germany 9%. 5 of the top ten spam zombie countries are in EMEA. 30

31 Spam Categories Spam related to commercial products was the top category with 22% followed by financial services with 21% Financial spam dropped from 30% to 21% mainly because of a marked decrease in pump and dump stock scams. 31

32 Spam Additional Metrics Between July 1 and December 31, 2006, spam made up 61 percent of all monitored traffic. This is an increase over the 59% in the previous reporting period. 60% of all spam is in English. During the current reporting period, 0.43% of spam contained malicious code - one out of every 147 spam messages. This is a decline from the previous reporting period where 0.68% of all spam contained malicious code. 32

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